General Installation
There have been countless questions about FA and Windows XP compatibility. Guess what, they are compatible. However, there is a rather lengthy process you must go through in order to play FA on Windows XP.

1. You must have your hard-drive in NTFS format and not FAT32. If you have FAT32 it and Windows XP will be very unstable.

2. Install FA normally and run the FA102x.exe patch when you are done. It will update the FA.exe and add a .dll file. However, it will not update the default libs.

3. Get the default libs (FA_1, FA_2, FA_4B, FA_4D) from someone with Windows 98 who has 1.02 patched. (If you do not wish to use the NOCD-with-Patch then you are done here, skip to step 6)

4. Install the FA-NOCD-with-Patch files.

5. Copy, from the blue disc, the FA_4C and FA_7 files so that you will not experience CTDs when you get medals/promotions in campaigns. It is around 85MB (4C) and 156MB (7). ( *** You can not do this if you are flying FA Futures *** )

6. You are done, get ready to fly!

The Toolkit
Once you install the toolkit normally you may experience difficulties with LIBs. This is normal but you can build LIBs and use them with FA and Windows XP. There is a slight secret that I have discovered through trial-and-error and though I do not understand the formula, I understand the answer.

For some odd reason you have to add items in a certain fashion. For example, I'll have a decent size LIB (size I do not believe matters at all but limits of 1500ish still apply) and I'll add a single PT file. I'll build and WHAM! CTD. I have found that if you add sometimes two or three objects of different types or of the same, depending on your experience, it will stablize the LIB. Like I said I do not understand it. You will have to do your own trial-and-error for this unfortunately. There is no cure-all for this problem as of yet.

Additionally, you may have to fiddle with LIBs in order to get them all under one file if you are including a .MM and .T2. Sometimes you may have to split up the .MM and .T2. Additionally, sometimes you may have to, if you are including missions, separate the missions and the .MM or .T2, whichever applies to you.

F.A.Q.
Submit questions via post and I shall update the FAQ on this thread with time...

Last edited by ForsakenOutlaw on Sun Jan 9 0:34:56 2005; edited 1 time in total

Fri Nov 5 9:19:49 2004

CAG Hotshot

Rank: Admin, Site Owner, Developer, Webmaster

Joined: 12 Aug 2004

Posts: 16086

Post subject:

Using Paintshop Pro as you main texture editor with FATK in WinXP solves the issues of loss of transparency with MS Paintbrush under XP.

Therefore if you upgrade to XP you will need to have Paintshop pro to conitinue using the FATK to edit texture files...